​​“Singapore: Imagining the Next 50 Years” to be the first common course across all six Singapore universities

Published on : 16-Feb-2017

JOINT MEDIA RELEASE

16 February 2017, Singapore – For the first time, all six Singapore universities will offer a common course, titled “Singapore: Imagining the Next 50 Years”.

It aims to equip tertiary students with a sound grasp of socio-economic issues and challenges faced by Singapore, such as a rapidly ageing society, security threats and increasing global competition. The intent of the course is also to stimulate thinking and creative ideas, and nurture Singaporeans who can contribute towards developing strategies and policies relevant to the ever-changing socio-economic and political landscape.

It will be open to undergraduate students from the National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore Management University (SMU), Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) and SIM University (UniSIM). NUS, NTU, SMU and SIT have launched and begun conducting classes since January 2017, while SUTD and UniSIM have scheduled to launch the course in the second half of the year.​

The course is an initiative by the six university Presidents, who form one of the working groups of the Educational Institutions Council under the Advisory Council on Community Relations in Defence (ACCORD). This working group aims to increase outreach to students from Institutes of Higher Learning on matters related to defence and National Service.

The take-up rate of “Singapore: Imagining the Next 50 Years” has been positive. For example, the course at NUS was 1.5 times oversubscribed for a class size of 60. The course was also highly popular at SMU, with seven students competing to register for each available place. In NTU, the course was three times oversubscribed for a class of 36 places.

Professor Tan Chorh Chuan, Co-Lead of the ACCORD Working Group which championed this course, said, “We are very heartened by the positive response to the new course. We hope it will further stimulate reflective thinking and discussion about these important topics and help our students deepen their appreciation as active citizens of Singapore, of the key issues, challenges and opportunities which may lie ahead.”

The 12-week course, which has been designed and put together by the six universities, covers six topics – namely Singapore in the World; Population; Economy; Security and Threats; Social Integration; as well as Aspirations and Identity. Each of the universities contributed one topic, with NTU as the overall coordinator who provided the technical expertise. Classes will be conducted online and face-to-face discussions.

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Media Contacts:

Tan Yo-Hinn

Assistant Director

Corporate Communications Office​​

Nanyang Technological University

T: +65 6790 4889

E: yohinn@ntu.edu.sg

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Associate

Asia PR Werkz

M: +65 9747 0027

E: amanda@asiaprwerkz.com​

Pravin Nair

Associate

Asia PR Werkz

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E​: pravin@asiaprwerkz.com

About Nanyang Technological University

A research-intensive public university, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has 33,500 undergraduate and postgraduate students in the colleges of Engineering, Business, Science, Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences, and its Interdisciplinary Graduate School. It also has a medical school, the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, set up jointly with Imperial College London.

NTU is also home to world-class autonomous institutes – the National Institute of Education, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Earth Observatory of Singapore, and Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering – and various leading research centres such as the Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute (NEWRI), Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N) and the Institute on Asian Consumer Insight (ACI).

Ranked 13th in the world, NTU has also been ranked the world’s top young university for the last three years running. The University’s main campus has been named one of the Top 15 Most Beautiful in the World. NTU also has a campus in Novena, Singapore’s medical district.